Review: The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is a book I never thought I would be interested in reading. Yet I found myself caught up in the story and towards the end I couldn't put the book down.  This book is set in the future, after the destruction of what we now know as America, due to natural disasters and non natural disasters.  Out of the remains of the old world a  new world called Panem arises which consists of The Capitol and 12 (used to be 13 districts).  The districts are kept in line by the mighty hand of the Capitol by Peacekeepers and electified fences and the annual Hunger Games.  As a reminder and punishment for an uprising/rebellion almost 3/4 of a century earlier each district is to send one boy and one girl "tribute" to the Capitol each year where they will fight to the death, with only one Victor.  The book begins on the day of the "Reaping"-the day where the tributes are chosen at random-and we are introduced to the main character, in whose voice we read the entire book, Katniss Everdeen.  We follow her as she volunteers as tribute and journeys to the Capitol with her fellow District 12 tribute Peeta.  I really did find myself connecting with the characters.  The author brought them to life for me.  Even though I had a hard time at first reading it in the voice it was written in, I got used to it.  I really thought it was going to be filled with lots of bloody battle scenes, but even though there were a few scenes that were a bit graphic and gory, the remainder of the time in the actual arena consisted of quite a few lessons on survival skills as Katniss kept to herself in order to stay alive, utilizing the skills she learned while hunting illegally in the woods behind District 12.  There were a lot of twists in this book enough to keep the reader on his/her toes and it made this book very hard to predict, keeping the suspense level just right to keep the reader reading just a little bit more, a little bit more.  The author kept the plot flowing perfectly.  Not to mention the surprise ending.
And while there are those few scenes that might bother the faint of heart, I was really pleased to find no foul language in this young adult novel.
The author has quite the imagination and was able to bring this future fictional world to life in all its horrors.
Oh, and there is a bit of a love story being told here which is extremely important to the plot.

This book is definitely a 5 star book.